The Thing With the Sewn Heart
by Draenog Glas
Summary: A Thing comes into Sonic's sewing shop, where it complains about having a hurt heart, damaged by those who didn't understand him. Sonic agrees to sew it again, but at the cost of loving the Thing too much. Christmas fic.


He came to my shop with a heavy heart, and said to fix it. I didn't had anything at all I could do to fix a heart. But tears seeped from his eyes, his movements have been sluggish and hurt, and he told me to fix it. Fix the shadows in his heart. And his name was Shadow. I was only a lowly dollmaker at this side of town that no one ever thought about coming into, but Shadow had marched into my shop as if he was a doll himself, asking if I could fix his heart. I asked him if he was drunk.

He was offended, perfunctorily, but his eyes wavered like a rich flame when he looked into mine. I wasn't sure at all if I could trust him. The hedgehog may have had too much to drink. I was never sure of the drunks who came by my shop knocking everything I had down, all the things I worked for. But his breath didn't smell like the drink, so I told him to sit down and tell me all his problems, like I was some kind of therapist for him. A therapist for a hedgehog who used too much eyeshadow.

"I'm lost. I don't know where I'm supposed to go in life. I don't know if I'm supposed to fall in love. I was never created that way. I think love is a foreign concept I will never get. I'm sure you know what this feeling is. I've heard love was a thing that hit you several times, and its mark never left you. Scars can always be burned in your heart, but they were fixable. You had to find another love. And another love. And eventually you would have so much love built up in your heart once you found these little glittering joys in your life like stars, you would never be sad, ever again. And I wonder if that can ever happen to me. With a heart that's fixable, I think, maybe I can. But it's been broken for so long, I feel like sadness is the only thing I can ever feel before I would ever feel right again."

Sadness was an implacable feeling. It drowned out your heart and made you feel selfish. No other pain was greater than yours. But it mattered, I meant to say. Any pain mattered. When you were a baby and bumped your head on a table, that mattered. You cried. And it was the same for anyone who just discovered that their hearts can break. It mattered. And your heart was a jigsaw you felt like no one can fix. The only thing I could fix him with, really, was my sewing needle and thread. I said it might be painful, trying to fill love into his heart again. And he said he didn't care, and I could tell he truly did care, because he was crying. The pain hurt too much, and he was a creation unloved by a man who didn't at all care about what the boys and girls would think of him. And he was poked and prodded and abused by some cruel little child. The stitching wasn't at all clean and I saw his white blood seeping out, as clear as his tears.

He asked me how much it would take to fix him, and he was willing to spill every dollar he gained by walking by the streets, the wind biting at his fluff with abhorrence. The world was unseemly cruel to him. And sadness had flowed through my veins as well. The feeling always took over and choked everything, your rationality dying along with your will to live.

The needle bit through, and he strained himself not to talk about the pain he felt. His heart was bleeding through, the fluff dripping on the floor. He gripped onto the seat and I told him that whatever pain he was feeling at the moment, it wasn't as hurtful as sadness was.

Tears fell on my palms. I couldn't brush them away. I had to keep on working.

There were many holes. He felt many pains along the way. No one was there to fix him or love him. I said maybe I would be the one to love him.

You probably already have a wife and some kids waiting for you back home, stitching up something like me. I'm only a thing. You shouldn't love Things.

I told him I did. No one was back home. Just me and my Things. My buttons and my needles and my cloth and my pictures of my old family who were long gone and the mirror that showed that I was still alive and still blue…

I snipped a protruding mass that had been embedded there for so long. His own little tumor. The mass was gone. And I kept talking about the Things I loved.

I loved all the toys I made and the children's smiles and a parent's satisfaction and I loved the stars and the moon and I loved seeing the sun when I wake up every morning and I loved seeing the sky becoming colorful like a peacock when it was morning and I loved the sunsets and I loved seeing the ocean not too far from here and I loved books and I loved peace of mind and…

He testified that he was an unlovable Thing. That was all he ever was. A Thing that was detested by everyone, therefore people have used their palms to hurt him. The palms that were once used to love him were like venomous snakes coiling around him. I wasn't sure what to say. All kinds of Things were loved. Even Things that most people hated, some people had actually loved.

The needle sutured most of his heart, but the tears still fell. I wasn't at all sure if anything else could fix his heart. Would a patch over it be tacky and make the children not at all like him?

As I thought it over, the heart wouldn't be able to carry more love into his life. Maybe a couple, a few, but it wouldn't fill him. It wouldn't make him truly happy. And sadness was a beast that was felt too often for him to live with life with only a few loves.

I tried to find a red cloth to put over it, but I used all the reds for doll dresses for the girls, and no pinks were around, nothing that I could find to be an affixed color. The only color that I could put into his heart was blue, the cobalt ocean that stained my fur, and I wasn't sure, I wasn't sure, but yes, maybe this little toy I could love after all. Another Thing that was loved. A toy that could one day become real as long as I kept it completely full of kindness and appreciation.

Why would you love me? My maker didn't love me. He in fact only cared about money. Why would you put so much care as to repair me?

Because if you put enough care into anything, it became truly a thing to behold.

The blue patch shined sovereignly in the dim light in my shop. I wasn't sure at all what to think. Would this plush creature be able to find love again? Was I only contributing to his sadness? He was unchanged, I believed. His fingertips were shaking and sore from worrying so much if the needle would gnaw through his skin. I told him things would be all right now. Because I was here.

"But even if I do have a sown heart, I wouldn't be able to find love. Who would be able to keep me alive? Keep me warm throughout the cold winter months ahead?"

I wasn't sure if there was anyone else who would other than me. I said I would. I said that I would make sure he was alright in the cold months. And the months thereafter.

My heart was touching his as I got closer. The lips tasted each other, and I wasn't at all sure if it was right for me to find anyone I loved and cared for. I loved Things too much to make this become Real. But it was his wish to be loved that he would become what he always wanted to be.

I told him he could stay in the shop, and my heart longed for him. I wished he would. His fingers no longer trembled, his face had a small smile, but soon he disappeared into the wintry night, the golden street lamps guiding his way to find more people to love him. He left without uttering a word.

And I was fine.

I knew he would come back one day, telling me stories of how his heart was bursting with love, and that he would sleep with me, until another Christmas had came and greeted me with its white skies and the stardust falling onto this canvas.


End file.
